Beech Hill

[auricom]

But it remains to be glued down and weathered. Then again, so does my loco fleet:

Dont glue it down!!
Lol the ballasting is quite impressive dude, keep up the good work

Lol thats what I was thinking, you may find it hard to play trains if you glue your loco fleet down too lol

That ballasting tub thingy-majig (technical term that ) seems pretty nifty

[dubdee1000]

Time flies. The photos should show that at least some of this time was spent fitting some kitchen units under the layout for some much-needed storage space.

With the Christmas shopping largely done, thus having a bit of time to myself, i took the chance to modify the upper tier a little. Previously i had two rows of terraced houses and then a bit of a gap with nothing and a puzzle what to put there. For a while, there was a bridge, but the slight curved meant all but the shortest of stock fouled the edges of the bridge. So it all came up and was relaid with a 50% bigger upper tier. This will be the 'town' part and i want a proper Wigan feel to it, but i need to have a good old think about this first. By the way, much of the clutter comes from my 6 and 3 year olds 'helping' me, but much of it is mine as well!

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Insert town here:

This space for rent

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[lozstlouis]

Am assured greatly by the presence of a hammer in first pic. Good effort.

[dubdee1000]

Oh yes. The hammer was the first thing I reached for. Actually, it was for knocking the rawl plugs into the wall..............plus a few track pins.....!

[NEvans]

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I also have a soft spot for 37's, them and Large Logo 50s. But they have to be well weathered. Like a working Black 5, just never seen them looking smart.

[dubdee1000]

been a while...

For a while, sitting on the end of a platform has been this. RTP:

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It does the job of being a utilitarian object for crossing the railway quite well, but what i really wanted it to do was to give a feeling of "apprehension". Its not to easy to explain this, so its perhaps best that i point you to this site, of Iron Bridge in Wigan, my home town. I can clearly remember crossing this bridge and even in the daytime, it wasn't the sort of place you'd want to hang around at. It crossed the Wigan Wallgate to Manchester lines and was sandwiched between the back of Wigan NW station and all the pubs and clubs of King Street. If anything dodgy was going to happen, it was going to happen here. (I would add it has since been cleaned up, but that didn't last long!!) I wanted my Bachmann bridge to look more like this, but perhaps not with ALL of the graffiti. I also wanted to add some lights to it (the model does have some representation), but not the modern, bright, everything-lit-up type, but a little bit more ...er... 'atmospheric'

tbc....

[hiffano]

maybe a bloody figure on the floor and a chav running off with a nicked bag?

[dubdee1000]

I said atmospheric, not violent!! No, i have something in mind and you're not a million miles away

[The Ferret]

Is your "Beech Hill" between Three Mile Cross and Stratfieldsaye, about seven miles South-West of Reading, Berks, UK? I ask because my layout is set in this area so maybe we could compare notes!

[Dad-1]

Hi dubdee1000,

Someone has been digging deep .......
It's always a relief to see someone else is slow in building their layout.
Lots of thinking time to try & get it right !!

Geoff T.

[dubdee1000]

Is your "Beech Hill" between Three Mile Cross and Stratfieldsaye, about seven miles South-West of Reading, Berks, UK? I ask because my layout is set in this area so maybe we could compare notes!

No, my "Beech Hill" is based near Wigan, where my Nan used to live. I say 'based' in the loosest possible term, more like 'named after'

[dubdee1000]

Pushing 4 years between updates. What's the record?

I fell out of love with it to be honest. I copied the plan from an article in model railroad, tweaking a few bits to make it better. That didn't work so I tweaked it more. That just made it worse. What I wanted was a tailchaser that could run itself with a nearer section where I could tinker. If I'd stuck to the plan that would have worked. But by adding to it, my 'improvements' impaired the tailchaser aspect. After a while, I got fed up and moved onto girls and beer. Or airfix kits.

What got me back into it was a trip to model railways direct near Bristol to sort out a tts 31. While I was in there, I rooted through the odds and sods and came out with a load of stuff. I'd bought loads in the past and it was just sitting there. I realized that I had pretty much all the things I needed, now just time.

So the following day, there was some major rebuilding work.....

[m.levin]

Pushing 4 years between updates. What's the record?

7 years on my layout thread. Goes from 2010 and jumps to 2017.
Girls and Beer are killing this hobby!!
Welcome back and looking forward to the updates.

[carnehan]

Beer you can have whilst pursuing the hobby. Girls never seem to be as keen though.

Nice to see another hobbyist venture in from the cold.

Paul

[dubdee1000]

The problem with Beech Hill was that it was an amalgamation of ideas. The copy of another layout with bits added on to make it better, which as I said previous, didn't work.

I've added a sketch of the previous track plan and now the amended.

I marked on the problem. Essentially one loop with things added to it. It was well intentioned, but totally impractical. It could mean three trains all traveling on the same loop, a nightmare to control. I kind of wanted the outer loop to run itself and I could play with the foreground, but this set-up went the other way, impossible to take your eye off it.

The amended version has two clear loops. It took a third revision actually as for some odd reason, I could despatch a train off the outer loop and it came back on the inner loop. Turns out there was a point missing. That amended, now runs well and the two loops can run without supervision.


This little lady was interested in the track plan. Either that or the ice cream I was eating while I sketched it out.

Definitely part gremlin. Her brother is the train fan, either that or he likes the feeling of 16v on his bum